Randall will graduate in August 2023 from Adult & Teen Challenge Ohio Valley’s year-long program with plans to return home to southern Ohio to start fresh.
His addiction started when he was young. “I broke my neck at a young age and was handed pain pills.”
He was 13. He went from pain pills to intravenous drugs. For a while, he thought he had control of it. He got married, but he was leading a double life, hiding his addiction.
“It all came crumbling down and put me in a big depression,” the St. Clairsville, Ohio, native said. “It even got me to the point where I was even thinking suicide.
In fall of 2018, he crashed a motorcycle and spent 14 days in a coma in the hospital. The crash fractured nearly every bone on the right side of his body.
In 2019, he entered ATCOV’s 45-day recovery program. It wasn’t enough for him.
“I was still dealing with depression, anger,” Randall explained. “I just wasn’t getting the progress to get my life back together, the motivation.”
His anger got in the way of him restoring his relationships with his family and Randall was facing domestic violence charges. He had stopped using opiates but continued to drink alcohol. He needed to return to ATCOV.
He wrote the judge, asking to return to the program rather than be incarcerated. He wrote scriptures on the letters. One of those was John 15:7: “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”
The judge allowed Randall to return to ATCOV.
After graduation, he plans to return home. His parents just bought a new house and are blessing Randall with the house he grew up in. His parents are also helping him get his license back. He’s going to help his father get the new house ready before his parents move in.
“I’m a union electrician so I plan on maybe going back and finishing my apprenticeship and my journeyman license for my apprenticeship,” Randall said.
ATCOV helped him change his mindset. “It seems the further I get along, the more blessings I see coming my way,” Randall said. “It’s giving me more motivation to keep seeking the right path.” Randall grew up in church, got married in church but didn’t stick with it.
“Coming here in 2019, God’s been something I’ve been seeking after and he’s definitely helped me progress in my recovery,” he said. “Since I’ve been seeking out for God more, he’s definitely been the center of everything.”
Randall keeps a photo in his Bible of himself in the hospital on a ventilator after his 2018 motorcycle crash. “It’s a reminder every morning of what I’ve come out of — still being able to walk and talk and still being able to work — it’s a blessing really to be alive,” he said.
Randall wants to use his testimony to help others, to show them that they can change too.
